Photo: Kristian Dugstad/TONO
TONO and Norwegian concert organizers have the same goal: We want as many concerts and live concert stages as possible around Norway. TONO also has great understanding that it can be financially demanding to be a small concert organizer. It is also always possible to discuss aspects of our concert model, but we disagree that it fundamentally discriminates against organizers and that the model is improved by charging less for the small concerts - it would create a greater class divide among music creators where the "small" would be the losing party.
/ 11/04/2024 / Willy MartinsenOur job is to ensure that composers, lyricists and songwriters – the creators of musical works – receive fair remuneration. This is a vulnerable professional group. The vast majority of them have very low incomes from their music creation.
Only 107 TONO members, that is, songwriters, composers and lyricists, received concert payments from TONO of more than 100,000 kroner in 2022. A full 85 percent of those who received concert payments received less than 10,000 kroner.
In the last couple of weeks, a number of concert organizers have criticized TONO's model for concert organizers on the Facebook forum Bransja prat and in the media. Unfortunately, some of this criticism is based on misunderstandings or incorrect premises. At the same time, we understand that this is complex, and therefore allow us to provide some clarifications.
One – the music creators – composes the music and writes the lyrics. The other – the artists and musicians – performs the musical works. Performing rights and copyrights are different things, and are protected by different sections of the law. There are also completely separate areas within the music economy:
1. The concert organizer pays fees directly to the professional group artists and musicians to perform. This is an agreement between the organizer and the artist.
2. The concert organizer is obliged to pay remuneration to the music creators for the use of the rights in musical works through TONO.
This distinction is consistent throughout the music economy. In streaming services, the services pay the artist/performer through the record company/distributor, and the composer/lyricist through TONO. Radio channels pay the artist and performer via Gramo, and the composers and lyricists through TONO. For music in film and advertising (sync), the producer pays the artist/performer through the record company/master owner, and the composers and lyricists through NCB/music publisher/TONO.
A term like "TONO fee", which TONO itself does not use, creates confusion about what the payment is. The term obscures the direct relationship between the payment to TONO and the payment to the composers, lyricists and songwriters.
TONO is in practice the music creators. It is a collaboration which is owned and managed by Norwegian composers, lyricists, songwriters and their music publishers. TONO is also by definition a non-profit enterprise, in that our entire annual profit is paid out to composers, lyricists and music publishers.
The payment a concert organizer makes to TONO is a payment to the music creators.
When artist John Mayer played a concert for a packed Oslo Spektrum in April, the payment from the organizer to TONO went exclusively to songwriter John Mayer and his co-songwriters. These are the copyright holders of the musical works that were performed at Spektrum.
When an artist, let's call her Hanne Hansen for the sake of the example, plays a concert at Antikvariatet in Trondheim for an audience of 50, it is her friend, the songwriter, let's call him Morten Mortensen, who gets the TONO money. John Mayer and any co-songwriters he has also got a share of, as Hanne also covered one of his songs.
TONO's model applies to all concert organizers and provides everyone with equal, objective conditions. We are obliged to do this under the Collective Management Act, which requires equal treatment. The model follows ticket sales, and gives music creators a percentage of gross ticket sales.
An organizer with a turnover of over 220,000 NOK thus pays the different percentages at each level: 10 percent for the lowest level, 8 percent for the next, and so on.
It is worth noting that if we disregard the minimum tariff, an organizer never pays more than 10 percent of the turnover to the composers and lyricists, who, through TONO, offer a basic delivery of goods, the songs, into the concert.
The model should provide a fair and decent remuneration to all music creators. John Mayer, Max Martin and other composers who are performed at the largest concerts should receive a fair remuneration. So should those whose music is performed on the smallest stages. The vast majority of concerts in Norway are small, well within the lowest tier (10 percent) in our model.
For Morten Mortensen in the example above, this means that sold out (50 tickets at 200 kroner) will result in a TONO fee of 1,000 kroner.
Organizers have advocated for a more flat rate – for all organizers. For example, if TONO were to change to a flat, fixed rate for all concerts of, say, 5 percent, John Mayer and the other composers and songwriters who have their songs performed at the biggest concerts would earn much moreMorten Mortensen, who only gets his songs performed at the small concerts, would get much less.
TONO and the concert organizers essentially have the same goal. We want lots of concerts to be held, we want it to be possible to do business in the concert industry, and we also want the music creators to be paid fairly.
We disagree that it should be a prerequisite for live concert stages that the payment to those who create the music that is performed at smaller concerts should be reduced. That they should be paid less.
The concert organizers' TONO payment rather makes it possible for the organizers to gain access to newly written songs and musical works by providing an economic basis for creating music. Reasonable remuneration for music creators therefore goes hand in hand with live concert scenes in Norway.